Notably, the flight attendant in question is perfectly happy to do all the rest of her job *and* to direct you to other flight attendants who don't have her restriction *and* to do *their* job while *they* serve you alcohol.
Which is what is generally termed a "reasonable accomodation". Similarly, a company I worked at allowed several Muslims to use the break room for prayers, the Hindu vegan at the grocery store didn't have to work the deli counter, and Sikhs who join the RCMP are allowed to wear their dastar.
This is different from Davis and the other fundie fake "religious freedom" expressions of bigotry in that, in all the "reasonable accomodation" cases that have a point, *the job still gets done*. Davis isn't just refusing to sign marriage licenses, she's refusing to allow marriage licenses to be signed by anyone. Pharmacists who refuse to serve birth control aren't just handing the prescription to another pharmacist at the same counter, they're preventing the customer from receiving their prescription entirely.
And it's worth noting, as well, that the cases of Davis and the pharmacists, they've been hired for a position where they are literally the only person who can serve the customer and/or the only job duties involve serving the customer. And in those cases, there's no "reasonable accomodation" that can be made.
I thought there were clerks who under Davis who *could* sign the marriage licenses, but they were afraid of retribution from their boss. Am I mistaken?
As I understand it, without being a lawyer but from reading what lawyers have had to say about it:
While she is present, she must sign marriage licenses for them to be legitimate, because that's how the clerk's job works. While she is not in the office, deputies may sign in her place. She could be "absent" just by going out for a coffee, but refused to be, meaning that during office hours, as long as she didn't leave the office, no licenses could be issued. She also threatened to fire any deputy who issued a license while she wasn't there.
She is elected and cannot be fired. The deputies are normal employees and CAN be fired, and this is deep in a backwards "at-will employment" state with historically Republican policies and the incredibly weak economy that causes. So losing your job is deeply bad.
Anyway. That's as I understand it: She's actively preventing other people from doing her job in the way they would if she was out sick, and it took until she was in jail for the office to be able to legally work around her. But I'm not a lawyer.
You're exactly right, in two ways. "Reasonable accommodations" are required by law - federal and very often state. What's nuts about the flight attendant case is that the airline basically served up the perfect lawsuit - first creating the accommodation and then revoking it after another attendant complained. If you want to win an accommodation case, as an employer, you need to be able to prove that you can't do so without taking on a substantial burden. It's hard to do that when you've figured out a perfectly workable solution previously.
But the second way in which you're right is that all of the people clamoring for "accommodations" really want to create a safe space in which to flatly deny services. That's what this is really all about - not getting another pharmacist to deliver Plan B, say, but to effectively prevent people from getting Plan B anywhere. They want Kim Davis, personally, to be "free" to say "no," as a means towards ensuring that no one gets a "yes."
That's what all these presidential candidates lining up with her understand, and that's the impulse they're speaking to. It's just thoroughly deceptive and evil.
I would take issue with the "all of the people" part of the statement "all of the people clamoring for "accommodations" really want to create a safe space in which to flatly deny services". For example, the flight attendant in the linked post doesn't want people to not receive alcohol, she wants them to receive alcohol *but not from her* and she specifically and proactively arranged, in advance, for that to happen.
It's the false "religious freedom" crusaders who are working to ensure that *nobody* does their job, not the people seeking reasonable accommodation so that their job still gets done but without conflict for them,
Which is what is generally termed a "reasonable accomodation". Similarly, a company I worked at allowed several Muslims to use the break room for prayers, the Hindu vegan at the grocery store didn't have to work the deli counter, and Sikhs who join the RCMP are allowed to wear their dastar.
This is different from Davis and the other fundie fake "religious freedom" expressions of bigotry in that, in all the "reasonable accomodation" cases that have a point, *the job still gets done*. Davis isn't just refusing to sign marriage licenses, she's refusing to allow marriage licenses to be signed by anyone. Pharmacists who refuse to serve birth control aren't just handing the prescription to another pharmacist at the same counter, they're preventing the customer from receiving their prescription entirely.
And it's worth noting, as well, that the cases of Davis and the pharmacists, they've been hired for a position where they are literally the only person who can serve the customer and/or the only job duties involve serving the customer. And in those cases, there's no "reasonable accomodation" that can be made.
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As I understand it, without being a lawyer but from reading what lawyers have had to say about it:
While she is present, she must sign marriage licenses for them to be legitimate, because that's how the clerk's job works.
While she is not in the office, deputies may sign in her place. She could be "absent" just by going out for a coffee, but refused to be, meaning that during office hours, as long as she didn't leave the office, no licenses could be issued.
She also threatened to fire any deputy who issued a license while she wasn't there.
She is elected and cannot be fired. The deputies are normal employees and CAN be fired, and this is deep in a backwards "at-will employment" state with historically Republican policies and the incredibly weak economy that causes. So losing your job is deeply bad.
Anyway. That's as I understand it: She's actively preventing other people from doing her job in the way they would if she was out sick, and it took until she was in jail for the office to be able to legally work around her. But I'm not a lawyer.
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Right To Work, is a state by state thing, but that's about cutting back how much Unions can collect in union dues, thereby chopping them at the knees.
But all employment is at-will employment, unless a contract gets signed.
As I understand it. I too am not a lawyer. Tho I know some.
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But the second way in which you're right is that all of the people clamoring for "accommodations" really want to create a safe space in which to flatly deny services. That's what this is really all about - not getting another pharmacist to deliver Plan B, say, but to effectively prevent people from getting Plan B anywhere. They want Kim Davis, personally, to be "free" to say "no," as a means towards ensuring that no one gets a "yes."
That's what all these presidential candidates lining up with her understand, and that's the impulse they're speaking to. It's just thoroughly deceptive and evil.
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It's the false "religious freedom" crusaders who are working to ensure that *nobody* does their job, not the people seeking reasonable accommodation so that their job still gets done but without conflict for them,
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